Ineos Develops Waste-to-Ethanol Process (green innovation edition)

3:09 AM MDT | August 1, 2008 |

Alex Scott

Ineos in the past few weeks unveiled plans to produce bioethanol, which could be used to fuel vehicles, from biodegradable household waste. The technology is based on a simple three-stage process: In the first step municipal solid waste, or other waste such as forestry or agricultural waste is gasified under a high temperature to generate syngas. The gases are then “bubbled into a pot” containing anaerobic bacteria. In a fermentation process the bacteria consume the syngas and “very selectively” convert it into ethanol...